Miyagi School for the Deaf

1 Introduction
Miyagi School for the Deaf is called "Miyagi Ro Gakko" in Japanese. The school is located in the Hachihonnmatsu area of Sendai and is over 90 years old. There is a small branch in Kogota that accommodates kindergarteners and elementary students.
The Miyagi Ro Gakko has a good reputation and some students come from as far as Hokkaido, Aomori, Yamagata, and Fukushima prefectures to attend the school.

2 Students
At the Miyagi Ro Gakko, there are 117 students who range in age from three to twenty. There are 12 kindergarteners, 23 elementary students, 30 junior high school students , 44 senior high school students and 8 vocational students. There is also a class for hearing -impaired babies before three in age.
There is a barding house to accommodate students who cannot commute to and from the school every day. There are 29 students who live at the school's barding house. With the exception of kindergarten students, students of all other levels live at the boarding house.
During class, the students are very well-behaved and attentive. During break, the junior high school students tend to be very playful and fun -loving. The senior high school students are very friendly and look after one another.

3 Classes
There is a nursery school that holds classes throughout the week. Mothers who have deaf children can come with their children for special classes.
The kindergarten, elementary, junior high school , senior high school, and vocational classes meet Monday through Friday. Students have home room and the classes are small, with usually no more than 5 students per class.

4 English Classes
Students begin English studies when they enter junior high school. Junior high school students have three hours of English instruction per week. Most senior high school students in the first and second grades have two hours per week of English instruction. However, most third grade senior high school students and first year vocational students only study English one hour per week. The students who want to go to college or vocational schools after graduation of senior high school can have more English classes.
There are team teaching classes for the junior high school, senior high school, and vocational classes. TT classes have one to six students and tend to be communicative lessons focusing on cultural material. For example, American schools, the American flag, Christmas traditions, and a student trip have all been topics for TT classes.
The severity of student' hearing loss varies, as does their ability to read lips. Thus, it is important to write as much as possible on the blackboard in order to check for comprehension and to teach the students pronunciation.
In order to communicate during TT classes, spoken and written Japanese and English are used as well as Japanese sign language. Some students use the fingerspelling of American Sign Language. Spoken English is almost always accompanied by written English. If students do no understand the meaning, we speak in Japanese or write Japanese on the board. If students do not understand how to pronounce a word, we exaggerate the movement of our mouths and use katakana when necessary.
When students are young, they learn how to move their mouth a certain way for each sound in the Japanese alphabet "katakana". Thus, the use of katakana helps students who can not hear understand how an English word sounds.

5 Staff members
There are 136 staff members at the Ro Gakko. Of the 136 staff members, 103 are teachers and the remaining 33 people make up office staff and boarding house staff.
The teachers come from diverse backgrounds. Some of the teachers are deaf and some of the teachers are transferred to Ro Gakko from other special schools. There are also teachers who come to the Ro Gakko with no prior training regarding special needs children from elementary schools, junior schools or senior high schools..
Nearly all the teachers use sign language. During morning meeting, teachers who can hear will translate the announcements for teachers who are deaf. It is also common for teachers to use sigh language at all times even if they can hear.

6 Club
There are clubs for junior high school, senior high school, and vocational students to join art, table tennis, badminton, skating and track and field and so on.

7 Senior High school and Vocational school
Some students graduated from senior high school goes on to vocational school for two years. There are four courses of study at senior high school and vocational school, a barber course, a technical course, an industrial handicraft (carpentry) course, and a dressmaking course. The Miyagi Ro Gakko is the only school for the deaf in the Tohoku region that has a vocational barber licensing program.
In the technical course, students learn how to use personal computers and learn about welding, manufacturing, and electronics. In the industrial handicraft course, students learn how to make small items used in the house, such as chairs, desks, and bookshelves. In the dressmaking course, students learn about textiles and fabrics as well as how to sew and knit clothes.